Why did you do it?" The movie opens with that question. In response, Jayson Blair makes a joke. "This one again," he mutters, rolling his eyes in mock consternation at the predictability of it. But predictable as it is and as long as he's had to ponder it, Mr. Blair still ends up punting. "I don't have a good answer for the question," he acknowledges. "A Fragile Trust: Plagiarism, Power and Jayson Blair at the New York Times" -- it premieres this week on PBS; check your local listings -- reintroduces us to the central figure in one of the great media scandals of all time, the one-time wunderkind who lied and plagiarized his way through a career on what is arguably the greatest stage in American journalism, The New York Times.

Why did you do it?" The movie opens with that question. In response, Jayson Blair makes a joke. "This one again," he mutters, rolling his eyes in mock consternation at the predictability of it. But predictable as it is and as long as he's had to ponder it, Mr. Blair still ends up punting. "I don't have a good answer for the question," he acknowledges. "A Fragile Trust: Plagiarism, Power and Jayson Blair at the New York Times" -- it premieres this week on PBS; check your local listings -- reintroduces us to the central figure in one of the great media scandals of all time, the one-time wunderkind who lied and plagiarized his way through a career on what is arguably the greatest stage in American journalism, The New York Times.

By David Folkenflik and David Folkenflik,Sun Staff | February 29, 2004

When the cab hurtling through midtown Manhattan stops, a young man in a gray suit unfolds himself and steps to the curb. The camera pulls back to reveal a gleaming legend above an entrance: The New York Times. The front page of The Times' Metropolitan section materializes on screen. A byline is highlighted. It reads: "Jayson Blair." Then the young man -- Blair himself -- begins to speak. The footage is part of a recruiting tape once sent to high schools by the University of Maryland, depicting the College Park campus as a place where students develop personally and professionally before embarking upon successful careers.

By David Folkenflik and David Folkenflik,SUN STAFF | September 24, 2004

With scandals besetting some of the nation's most respected media outlets, why would anyone trust what they read in newspapers and magazines or what they see on television news programs? Many Americans don't. A new Gallup Poll, based on surveys taken last week, found that media credibility rests at its lowest point in decades. Just 44 percent of Americans now say they are confident that U.S. news outlets are presenting the news accurately and completely. That's down from 54 percent a year ago -- about the same as it had been for seven years.

Thanks to Jayson Blair, Howell Raines and several of their colleagues at The New York Times, it would be relatively easy to compile a Times-only list for this year's report on the worst moments in American journalism. But as another famous, unindicted co-conspirator once said, "It would be wrong." Well, OK, maybe it wouldn't be wrong. I mean, just look at the year that was on West 43rd Street: Blair's serial fabrications. Raines' arrogant reign and forced resignation. Publisher Arthur Sulzberger's bullying The Washington Post into leaving their partnership at The International Herald Tribune.

NEW YORK - Former New York Times executive editor Howell Raines, in his first public comments since resigning, said Friday that he had tried to shake up a "complacent culture" at the newspaper, but that the furor over the Jayson Blair scandal had made it impossible for him to continue at the helm. Raines, who appeared on The Charlie Rose Show, also said he and Managing Editor Gerald Boyd had been asked to step down by Times Publisher Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr. Sulzberger had said the two volunteered to resign.

IT IS TIME Jayson Blair got out of the headlines and into some kind of serious therapy. The journalistic wunderkind who brought the New York Times to shame by fabricating some stories and stealing others has revealed himself to be not a case study of all that is wrong with journalism, but a first-class head case. In what appears to have been a manic phase, Blair granted an interview with the New York Observer last week and laughed at how easily he was able to fool his editors at The Times.

Cheaters never prosper, the old adage goes. But Winona Ryder, Stephen Glass and Jayson Blair might beg to differ. All three can tell you that sometimes crime pays. After appearing in court dressed in fashion label Marc Jacobs' clothes to face charges of shoplifting a Marc Jacobs top, among other items, Ryder has now modeled for the designer. Stephen Glass, a former writer for The New Republic, Rolling Stone, Harper's and George magazines, was discovered in 1998 to be fabricating his articles.

WHILE INTERVIEWING for a job teaching journalism ethics at the University of Maryland in 1999, I fielded questions from a student representative called in to assess me, one Jayson Blair. Mr. Blair was poised to begin his first full-time reporting job, not at the Frederick Post or Montgomery Gazette but at the lofty New York Times. He was confident, witty, charming and charismatic. He seemed oh so serious about ethics. Talk about appearances being deceiving. His recently exposed spree of fabrication and plagiarism in the Times has done to journalism what the 1919 Chicago Black Sox scandal did to baseball.

WASHINGTON - So apparently, Jayson Blair's biggest crime is not that he cheated and misled. It's that he cheated and misled while black. That's the unmistakable implication of much of the criticism that's been leveled at the young man in recent days. Not that he doesn't deserve condemnation. As you may have heard, Mr. Blair lied and plagiarized his way through dozens of stories in the course of nearly four years as a New York Times reporter. The Times catalogued the sins of its now ex-employee in a grim four-page report May 11. In it, we learn that Mr. Blair claimed to have reported from places he had not been, claimed to have interviewed people he had not met and claimed as his own passages he had not written.

By David Folkenflik and David Folkenflik,Sun Staff | February 29, 2004

When the cab hurtling through midtown Manhattan stops, a young man in a gray suit unfolds himself and steps to the curb. The camera pulls back to reveal a gleaming legend above an entrance: The New York Times. The front page of The Times' Metropolitan section materializes on screen. A byline is highlighted. It reads: "Jayson Blair." Then the young man -- Blair himself -- begins to speak. The footage is part of a recruiting tape once sent to high schools by the University of Maryland, depicting the College Park campus as a place where students develop personally and professionally before embarking upon successful careers.

Thanks to Jayson Blair, Howell Raines and several of their colleagues at The New York Times, it would be relatively easy to compile a Times-only list for this year's report on the worst moments in American journalism. But as another famous, unindicted co-conspirator once said, "It would be wrong." Well, OK, maybe it wouldn't be wrong. I mean, just look at the year that was on West 43rd Street: Blair's serial fabrications. Raines' arrogant reign and forced resignation. Publisher Arthur Sulzberger's bullying The Washington Post into leaving their partnership at The International Herald Tribune.

Cheaters never prosper, the old adage goes. But Winona Ryder, Stephen Glass and Jayson Blair might beg to differ. All three can tell you that sometimes crime pays. After appearing in court dressed in fashion label Marc Jacobs' clothes to face charges of shoplifting a Marc Jacobs top, among other items, Ryder has now modeled for the designer. Stephen Glass, a former writer for The New Republic, Rolling Stone, Harper's and George magazines, was discovered in 1998 to be fabricating his articles.

NEW YORK - Former New York Times executive editor Howell Raines, in his first public comments since resigning, said Friday that he had tried to shake up a "complacent culture" at the newspaper, but that the furor over the Jayson Blair scandal had made it impossible for him to continue at the helm. Raines, who appeared on The Charlie Rose Show, also said he and Managing Editor Gerald Boyd had been asked to step down by Times Publisher Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr. Sulzberger had said the two volunteered to resign.

By David Folkenflik and David Folkenflik,SUN STAFF WRITER | June 14, 2003

Agroup of 30 former student journalists at the University of Maryland say disgraced reporter Jayson Blair wrote questionable articles and manipulated his mentors while on campus in the mid-1990s - just as he did at The New York Times before resigning this spring. In a memo to university officials, alumni from the Diamondback, the independent undergraduate newspaper, faulted the Merrill School of Journalism and board members of the paper's parent company, Maryland Media Inc., for ignoring questions they had raised about Blair's work.

By David Folkenflik and David Folkenflik,SUN NATIONAL STAFF | June 6, 2003

Howell Raines resigned as executive editor of The New York Times yesterday along with his chief deputy, casualties of a young reporter's betrayal that led to the loss of confidence in the top editors' ability to lead the nation's most prestigious newspaper. Former Executive Editor Joseph Lelyveld was tapped to head the Times on a temporary basis. Raines and Managing Editor Gerald Boyd announced their resignations just past 10:30 a.m. yesterday in successive remarks to newsroom staffers on the third floor of the Times' Midtown Manhattan headquarters.

WASHINGTON - We have a new breakfast suggestion in the newsroom where I work: Cheez Doodles and booze. We call it "the Jayson Blair Diet." Scotch, cigarettes and Cheez Doodles are now reported by some of his former editors and colleagues at The New York Times to have been the now-infamous 27-year-old reporter's preferred forms of self-medication during his employment there. Mr. Blair's brief career is now stained by plagiarism, fabrications, numerous errors in facts and outright lies about his locations and expenses.

DOESN'T THIS Jayson Blair story get better and better? First, Blair - dubbed "Just Joshin' Blair" in this column because of his penchant for fabrication, plagiarism and boo-boos - resigned from the New York Times on May 1. Editors noted that a Blair story looked suspiciously like one in the San Antonio Express News and figured "Just Joshin'" had some 'splaining to do. The Times published an angst-laden account of Blair's sins a couple of weeks later....

IT IS TIME Jayson Blair got out of the headlines and into some kind of serious therapy. The journalistic wunderkind who brought the New York Times to shame by fabricating some stories and stealing others has revealed himself to be not a case study of all that is wrong with journalism, but a first-class head case. In what appears to have been a manic phase, Blair granted an interview with the New York Observer last week and laughed at how easily he was able to fool his editors at The Times.

WASHINGTON -- I know you're sick of him, but can you stand one more analysis of Jayson Blair? For those of you who have spent the last three weeks in a sensory deprivation tank: Mr. Blair is black, 27 years old, and was a reporter for The New York Times until it was discovered that he had lied and plagiarized his way through dozens of articles. Now he is the most reviled man in American journalism. Some critics have claimed that this is what you get from "diversity," that newspapers have been forced to lower their standards in order to hire unqualified blacks and other minorities.